Discussion: Our ethical responsibility

[Johanna Laakso]

Dear Colleagues,

after forwarding the announcement of Angela Marcantonio's new book in
Hungary and discussing the recent "developments" by e-mail with a few
colleagues, I have finally decided to break the silence.

What is going on in Hungary -- hundreds or thousands of people, ridden by
what looks like an ultra-nationalist collective psychosis, attempt to base
their national identity and national self-esteem on pseudo-scientific
flim-flam and paranoid conspiracy theories -- is an internal problem
connected with the traumatic history of the Hungarian nation, and we can
only offer our sympathy and moral support to those Hungarian colleagues who
are still speaking for the voice of reason.

However, we should be concerned about members of the international
linguistic community either misled by some pseudo-scientific and politically
dubious groups or misusing them. Doesn't Angela Marcantonio realize that her
books are being marketed in Hungary together with works painstakingly
"proving" that Jesus was not a Jew (new edition of a work from 1936, issued
by the same "Magyar Ház" publishing house which published Marcantonio's
previous monograph -- http://hetilap.hetek.hu/index.php?cikk=6220 ), on
homepages proclaiming that the Old Hungarian Runic script was not made by
human beings but devised in heaven ( http://www.hun-idea.com/ > Rovásírás)?
Or does she know this and yet enjoy being celebrated by those people as a
famous foreign "professor of linguistics" -- or can she even use her
reception in the pseudo-scientific circles of Hungary as an academic merit
at her home university and in the international linguistic community?

I am very sorry if this sounds rude and personal. But I am writing this in a
city which contributed to the rise of perhaps the most disastrous
pseudo-science-promoting ultra-nationalist doctrine of the 20th century, in
a European context in which -- or so I have believed until now -- it is the
duty of every honest scholar to distance herself/himself from
pseudo-scientific enterprises, especially those with political connections.

The tradition of Finno-Ugric studies has been very tolerant. Individual
"alternative" theories (such as the ideas of Finno-Ugric/Native American
language affinities) have enriched the programme of some International
Finno-Ugrists' Congresses, and the work of some latter-day "revolutionaries"
-- since they failed to react in any sensible way to the criticism they
provoked -- has mostly been passed by in polite silence (to quote a
colleague: "Ich rezipiere X. einfach nicht mehr"). In this case, however, I
feel that we are approaching the border of ethical acceptability and that a
discussion on the ethics of the popularization of research is urgently
needed.

What should be done?

Best,
JL
-- 
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Johanna Laakso
Universität Wien, Institut für Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und
Literaturwissenschaft (EVSL) | Abteilung Finno-Ugristik
Universitätscampus Spitalgasse 2-4 Hof 7, A-1090 Wien
Tel. +43 1 4277 43019, (VoIP) +43 599664 43019 | Fax +43 1 4277 9430
johanna.laakso at univie.ac.at | http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Johanna.Laakso/



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